I've bought things on eBay before, but I always go for the 'Buy It Now' things because I don't like the idea of being out bid.

But I was looking online earlier and there were some tap shoes, so I thought "okay, I'll watch them and see what happens".

Flash forward to this evening when John was on his laptop and I'd just finished reading my book (for the htv book club of course :D) and I realised that the auction would be finishing soon.

Thirty minutes to go. So I put in a bid. I'm still being out bid, so I put it up a little more. But I'm still being out bid. So I figure I'd be happy to pay up to £20 for these shoes. I take away the cost of postage and packing and submit that as my bid and I'm the highest bidder.

It's quite exhilerating. I've got four more minutes to go and I'm sure that someone'll swoop in at the last minute and steal them out from under my nose, but I'm sticking fast to my total bid of £20 - there's no sense getting carried away and there's at least two others in my size that are finishing this weekend. Besides, I already have a pair of tap shoes that I can be going on with for the time being and I spent about £25 on those - of course once I've got a better pair I'll try selling my current ones on eBay. Even if I can only get £5 for them it'll be worth it just to get them out of the house - it's nice to think that someone else might get some use out of them.

Ooh, one minute to go and my laptop battery is going to give out at any minute!

Whoop! I won them!!!